Zimbabwe says Uganda's JLOS is Africa's best

Cape Town - Zimbabwe has reportedly hailed Uganda's Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) saying the east African country runs one of the best JLOS on the continent.

According to Uganda's Daily Monitor, Zimbabwe's deputy minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs Fortune Chasi said the southern African country could learn a lot from Uganda's JLOS.

An eight-member delegation from the Zimbabwean government is in Uganda for a week "to learn from the key players of Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) to enable them replicate the same in their country", the report said.

Chasi said Zimbabwe's JLOS was still young - about two years old – and therefore there was need for the country to borrow a leaf from JLOS of Uganda which "has been around for some time and is effective".

JLOS, according to Uganda Prisions Service website is a sector wide approach adopted by Uganda to bring together institutions with closely linked mandates of administering justice and maintaining law and order and human rights, into developing a common vision, policy framework, unified on objectives and plan over the medium term.

Kizza Besigye (File: AFP)

Following the report, Uganda's opposition leader, who is also a democracy and human Rights activist Kizza Besigye had this to say on Twitter:

Besigye, a one-time ally of President Yoweri Museveni has also been detained several times since he championed opposition demonstrations in 2011.

Zimbabwe itself has often been criticised for lack of democracy and human rights abuses.

A rights group Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition on Wednesday called for a halt to farm invasions, property rights to be respected, and the rule of law to be observed, according to SAPA.

The group said this as it decried the recent appointment of President Robert Mugabe as the new Southern African Development Community (SADC) chair.

The group said there could be a "democratic deficit" in the SADC under the chairmanship of Mugabe.

"We strongly feel that SADC still has a role to play in Zimbabwe, especially in demanding urgent democratic reforms as provided for in the country’s new Constitution that came into force on 22 August 2013," the group was quoted as saying.